Five workers killed in labor accidents on Sunday
ISTANBUL (DİHA) - Negligence at construction sites continued to take its toll only a week after the deadly elevator collapse at the construction site of a luxurious tower in Istanbul that cost the life of 10 workers, as five more workers fell victims to labor accidents across Turkey on September 14.
Four of the workers were killed from falling from heights, while the fifth worker died after being struck by electricity, in cases that have once again drawn attention to the lack of basic safety measures that could have easily prevented such deadly accidents from happening. In Istanbul’s European district of Beylikdüzü, 23-year-old Metin Boğmalık died after losing his step and falling while he was loading materials onto a crane on the 15th floor of a construction site. Following the inspection of the site, experts said the use of a body belt would have averted the accident.
In Kartal on the Asian side of Istanbul, Ahmet Çakmak, 49, fell from the eighth floor of a building while helping to load timbers into a truck with a crane. Çakmak crashed into the truck, with witnesses saying workers at the site were not wearing any safety equipment, not even helmets. In Konya, Kıyas Kahraman died after falling from the third floor of a construction site. Similarly, in Zonguldak, another laborer, Mehmet Albayrak, fell from the second floor of a three-storey construction site after losing his balance while laying bricks. Albayrak was rushed to the hospital in critical condition, but lost his life despite medical intervention.
Meanwhile, a fifth laborer died at a construction site ran by Turkey’s state housing agency, TOKİ, in Kırşehir, amid controversy of negligence. Serkan Aydın, 19, was killed after being struck by an electrical current while using a defective freight lift.
(nt)
